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Richmond Valentine & Allies
Valentine
Richmond Valentine
"Mankind is the virus, and I'm the cure."
Portrayed By: Samuel L. Jackson
Appearances: Kingsman: The Secret Service | Kingsman: The Golden Circle (flashback)
- "Money's not my issue. I could've retired straight out of M.I.T., fucked off to some island and let the business run itself. Nobody told me to try and save the planet. I wanted to. Climate change research, lobbying, years of studying, billions of dollars, and you know why I quit? Because the last time I checked, the planet was still fucked. Hence, my epiphany. Money won't solve this. Those idiots that call themselves politicians have buried their heads in the sand and stood for nothing but re-election. So I spent the last two years trying to find a real solution. And I found it. Now, if you really wanna make the world a better place, I suggest you open your fucking ears, because I'm about to tell it to you."
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While they share their utilitarian intentions, James Arnold (Valentine's comic book equivalent) was more of a Psychopathic Manchild that kidnapped all of the celebrities he intended to save not because of their contributions to society, but because he's their fan. While Arnold tested his Hate Plague tech on a group of brides and grooms at a celebrity wedding, Valentine used it on a gun-toting hate-group. While Arnold had ableist tendencies by giving his various henchmen nicknames based on their handicaps, Valentine is a Benevolent Boss who is only ever cordial with Gazelle.
- Affably Evil: Valentine is a down-to-earth, very friendly, cheerful, and charismatic fellow who's mildly dorky, doesn't care at all about his billions, and is primarily concerned with saving the world and humanity. He shows a dislike of politicians who "stand for nothing but re-election," he's genuinely charming, makes friends easily, and absolutely believes he is doing the right thing. It's little wonder so many of his co-conspirators come over to his side willingly. He even mourns the death of his previous kidnap victim, Dr. Arnold.
- Afraid of Blood: He has an aversion to blood and death, which causes him to vomit. Becomes a Brick Joke when he's impaled by Eggsy and he vomits at the sight of his own blood.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Yes, he did try to kill most of the world's human population, but his paranoia that overpopulation could lead to human extinction and/or environmental armageddon isn't unfounded.
- Ascended Fanboy: Of a sort. As shown in his conversation with Harry over dinner, he absolutely loves the early, campy James Bond films, and used to wish he could be that hero. He didn't get to be that, but he did get to follow the opposite end of the spectrum, and is absolutely loving it.
- Bait the Dog: He spends the early parts of the film being an Affably Evil, quirky Non-Action Big Bad who raises good points in his arguments, hates the sight of blood, and gives away unlimited Internet access to everyone worldwide. Any resultant doubt about his evilness is dispelled later on.
- Benevolent Boss: He genuinely seems to value his associates, he's even outraged when Merlin blows up the devices in their heads.
- Big Bad: The main villain of the first film, as the mastermind behind the plan to kill off most of humanity.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: After shooting Galahad point-blank between the eyes, Valentine nearly vomits, cringes away, and has to have someone else confirm that the target is actually dead. Not that he minds wiping out most of humanity, but he says that pulling the trigger himself is "horrible."
- Boomerang Bigot: He continues to wear outfits reminiscent of Eggsy's "chav" ensembles, is confirmed to have sprung from poverty himself, and speaks with informal language and a lisp; but his "chosen people" are traditional, classist, pretentious rich assholes.
- The Charmer: Of the nonromantic/nonsexual variety. He's a winsome, eloquent Dark Messiah who convinces numbers with ease, albeit that's largely due to his followers being prejudiced assholes.
- The Chessmaster: He's cautious and works very hard at making sure any problems will be dealt with before they become a threat.
- Cold Equation: He thinks killing off most of humanity will make him the man who saved the human species from extinction.
- Dark Messiah: To some degree. He at least encourages his guests by comparing his plan to Noah's Ark, claiming that neither Noah, God, nor the animals are the villains, and that like them, they will all bring in a new age.
- Dirty Old Man: At one point, Valentine casually cops a feel off Gazelle’s bum... though she doesn’t seem to mind.
- Dying Smirk: After being impaled by Eggsy, he calmly asks if Eggsy's going to deliver a Bond One-Liner. Eggsy gives him an Ironic Echo of Valentine's earlier statement, "This ain't that kind of movie, bruv." Valentine smiles, says "Perfect," and dies.
- Eco-Terrorist: He sees human overpopulation as the biggest threat to Earth's capacity to supporting life and that the only way to prevent absolute catastrophe is what amounts to Kill the Poor on a global skill via a tech-based Hate Plague.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: He has a noticeable lisp.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gazelle is the sole person in the movie Valentine genuinely cares about beyond a brief friendship (as is the case with his kidnapping victims). He gets worried when she dies during his fight with Eggsy and calls her name.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He decides to test his evil plan on a church of racists and homophobes, even specifically calling then "freaks."
- Evil Laugh: The second time Valentine puts his hand on the machine, he shows the audience how happy he is.
- Evil Malthusian: Valentine aims to solve the world's resource and climate change issues by culling its population through the use of a Hate Plague caused by special SIM cards that broadcast at a certain frequency; only those who have a special chip embedded in them would be immune.
- Evil Plan: Richmond Valentine seeks to solve overpopulation by driving everybody except his hand-picked victims into a homicidal fury via a wireless signal disguised as free wi-fi.
- Face Death with Dignity: To his credit, as he's dying, all he does is ask Eggsy if he's going to make an Incredibly Lame Pun, and when Eggsy responds by repeating the same movie joke Valentine told Harry before killing him, he chuckles and calls it "perfect" before dying.
- Fallen Hero: All signs point to Valentine formerly being a genuine Honest Corporate Executive and philanthropist. However, he came across…fierce resistance to his philanthropy that caused him to make a Face–Heel Turn.
- Foil: Other characters treat Eggsy like a thuggish delinquent, something he himself embraces at the start of the film despite having obvious Hidden Depths. Valentine rolls in high class circles and is treated like a cultural elite despite being classless, crude, and evil.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Though unlike most evil characters, his glasses are pretty goofy-looking.
- Genre Savvy: He professes to be a fan of the James Bond films and knows he's the villain in one of them, so he knows his stuff.
- When he suspects a secret organization is onto his scheme, he checks every "known" organization to see if it could be them. He also picks up on this fact by identifying that Harry makes reference to the death of an associate, which is surely the mystery man that almost got Valentine's hostage before he did, thus they work for one organization.
- Once he realizes that an organization is on his trail, he immediately and drastically speeds up the progress towards completion of his plans at great financial cost to himself to minimize the chances of the wrong people figuring out his plan before he has time to carry it out.
- When Harry under the alias of "DeVere" shows interest in making a donation to Valentine's organization, he has this mysterious billionaire he's never met before investigated, and when meeting him in person, immediately pegs him as a spy and slips a tracker into his drink.
- He lampshades Bond Villain Stupidity and forgoes it by shooting Harry in the head.
- He keeps information important to his master plan in a notebook, not on any computer or hard drive, specifically because it cannot be remotely hacked.
- He brings up how stupid it would be for him to put the Explosive Leash implant in his own head or Gazelle's, hence why he did not do so.
- He has the activation sequence for his Evil Plan connected directly to his biometrics and require a handprint to access, so no outsider can hack it without getting to him.
- Lastly, rather than rely upon either his own satellite network or Gazelle's presumable murder of Eggsy before bringing his plan into action after losing a satellite, he piggybacked on an associate's nearby one instead to shorten the time span to the completion of the network needed and made sure to never lift his hand from the control providing the power for the Evil Plan until he was killed.
- Hypocrite: It is strongly implied that the reason why he took the extreme measures that he did was because he got pushback from the only people who could have done anything about climate change (i.e., corrupt politicians and crooked capitalists who benefit from lax environmental laws). Yet who does he decide is exempt from his Evil Plan? High society politicians, aristocrats and every other Upper-Class Twit in his phonebook, his plot being a Kill the Poor-scheme as a by-product.
- Valentine is a self made man who literally came from nothing and genuinely seeks to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, the people he chooses to spare during his evil plan are all the social elite, many of whom are from old money and never made their fortunes themselves.
- Valentine claims that he gave up on trying to convince people to do anything about climate change because of the pushback from corrupt politicians and wealthy elite. However, not only does Valentine recruite these exact same people for his scheme, but his manages to convince them one on one to join up with him. Showing that Valentine could have swayed those very same obstructionists to his cause, he just chose not to.
- On top of the above, during the final confrontation he accuses Eggsy of killing "innocent people" by having Merlin detonate Valentine's implants, when everyone Eggsy killed at least agreed with a plan to provoke mass murder of innocent people whereas Valentine's intended targets were random civilians who likely never planned to kill anyone.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Eggsy throws one of Gazelle's blade legs right through his back, which erupts out his chest.
- Ironic Name: "Valentine" is widely known as the holiday to offer love towards your fellow man. On the other hand, this Valentine has nothing except contempt for humanity and is engineering a worldwide Hate Plague.
- Large Ham: Jackson clearly had fun playing him, even adding the lisp
off his own volition. - Laughably Evil: He's such a geeky fanboy that it becomes funny a lot of the time. Doesn't change the fact that he's a genocidal Eco-Terrorist.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's charismatic and affable enough to convince most world leaders and Arthur himself to join him in his twisted, bizarre plan to save the world.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The non-action Feminine Boy to Gazelle's Ax-Crazy Masculine Girl.
- Meta Guy: Frequently comments on the various Tuxedo and Martini tropes as he either averts or revels in them.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Bizarrely subverted — he wants to wipe out most of humankind to stop destruction of nature, but he does it to save humankind, not nature, as he believes that Earth will eventually destroy humanity to stop pollution if it doesn't change its ways.
- Moral Myopia:
- He plans to cull most of humanity, yet he is freaked out by seeing violence and blood up close.
- Valentine also freaks out over Eggsy and Merlin killing off all his collaborators since they were "innocent people," despite them being on board with his genocidal plans. Never mind all the innocent people that he wants to kill too.
- Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Diabolical Mastermind he may be, but he's surprisingly dorky about it.
- Non-Action Big Bad: He has no stomach for blood or violence, and he's a feeble techie to begin with, so he lets Gazelle do the fighting for him. Well, except for shooting Galahad. And even then, he isn't terribly happy about it.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Despite being comedic, he becomes a bit of this at times, particularly when he doesn't pick up the Idiot Ball and elects to shoot Harry Hart rather than give him the opportunity to figure out how to get away.
- Pet the Dog: Even though he could've just forced Princess Tilde to have a chip implanted or torture her into doing so, he doesn't. Yes, he keeps her imprisoned, but makes sure her accommodations are good and she's properly fed.
- Precision F-Strike: Snarls "You motherfucker" at Eggsy after Merlin blows the signal chips in the heads of his collaborators up.
- Pyrrhic Victory: For the most part, all his plans were successful; most of the global population is gone, including the mass majority of the world's leaders who denied climate change for monetary reasons. It's just that everyone he wanted to save, including himself, died.
- Psychopathic Manchild: His choice of clothing and serving McDonald's at a formal dinner heavily implies this.
- Race Lift: James Arnold, his comicbook equivalent, is white. He's black in the movie.
- Self-Made Man: Valentine comes from a poor background and made his money through establishing his own tech company (in the vein of many Silicon Valley Executives).
- Sissy Villain: Valentine has a lisp, dresses fairly casually (and when he does go formal, is very foppish), and is sickened by acts of murder. Direct murder, that is. He's fine with having people kill each other.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Valentine has proven to be an incredibly intelligent, genre savvy individual. He always wears glasses.
- Technical Pacifist: Valentine absolutely hates the sight of blood, so he leaves the killing to Gazelle and his mooks. He also has no problem with wiping out most of humanity by sending a Hate Plague to make them kill each other, but the only time he personally kills someone, he's very squicked out afterwards.
- Trumplica: Downplayed compared to other examples, but he has stereotypical Nouveau Riche tastes similar to the original, such as McDonald's food paired with expensive wine, an expensive yet garish fasion sense, and an attitude of contempt towards the establishment despite the fact that he and his allies are wealthy businessmen and politicians.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: He is willing to wipe out most of humanity in order to save the planet.
- Villain Has a Point: The basic reason he is able to convince so many people to join his side; humans are destroying the planet and it will eventually lead to humanity's extinction, and he is technically right that the only people (being corrupt politicians and world leaders) able to do anything about it don't care and are more interested in re-election and unnecessary stuff than problem-solving.
- Villainous Breakdown: He grows increasingly unstable as his Evil Plan begins to fall to pieces.
- Villainous Friendship: Not only with Gazelle, but also with the "VIPs" he plans on sparing. After Merlin activates the explosive implants in their heads, killing all of them, Valentine is enraged, telling Gazelle to kill Eggsy because he killed their friends.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Valentine is well-known as a beloved eccentric billionaire philanthropist. He even has a movie about his life coming out. Of course, it's not that hard to get people to love you when you give the world free, unlimited cell coverage.
- Visionary Villain: His goal is to wipe out most of humanity in order to save the planet from being ruined.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He genuinely believes that most of mankind needs to be "culled" in order to save the planet from the environmental damage produced by humans. He thinks it's too late to save the world traditionally and if nothing is done, either mankind will destroy the world or nature itself will end up destroying mankind.
- Wicked Pretentious: He rolls in high-class circles, but is an upstart tech mogul who dresses poorly and serves fast food at meetings. This contrasts with the protagonist, Eggsy, who is generally regarded as a street thug but whose journey is all about finding his own variety of class.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Despite otherwise intimate knowledge of Tuxedo and Martini villains, he doesn't believe he is one. It gets him killed for his efforts.
Gazelle
Gazelle
"Looks like a lot of people are going to die."
Portrayed By: Sofia Boutella
Appearances: Kingsman: The Secret Service | Kingsman: The Golden Circle (flashback)
Valentine's Dragon, Gazelle is a loyal and competent assistant who has had her lower legs amputated and replaced with blades.
- Admiring the Abomination: Expresses admiration as she watches a berserk Harry mow down the churchgoers, much to Valentine's chagrin.
- Ambiguously Brown: Sofia's ethnicity is Algerian; however, Gazelle's ethnicity is never stated in the movie.
- Artificial Limbs: Gazelle's legs are what you get when combining a pair of normal prosthetic legs and Absurdly Sharp Blade.
- Ax-Crazy: Gazelle loves her work, and cheerfully asks Valentine at one point to affirm how good killing someone really is.
- Blood Knight: Overtly enjoys carnage whether by proxy or directly inflicting it.
- Dance Battler: Her fighting style is extremely graceful and lethal, focusing on her bladed leg prosthetics. She even uses classic breakdancing techniques in the climax. Appropriately, she is played by Sofia Boutella, a professional dancer.
- Dark Action Girl: A fast and ruthless combatant, Gazelle is a very capable fighter. Of her opponents only Eggsy is even able to land a scratch on her. Good thing a scratch was all he needed.
- Disability Superpower: Gazelle's had both feet amputated (why is never stated), but compensates with weaponized prosthetics that make her kicks deadly.
- The Dragon: To Valentine, especially since he's too afraid of blood to participate in fights.
- Enigmatic Minion: Not much is revealed about her during the movie. We know that she's extremely loyal to Valentine, she has a pair of bladed prosthetic legs, she's an incredibly deadly fighter, and she seems to be pretty proficient with technology, but that's pretty much it.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gazelle only truly cares about Valentine, and is very loyal and fiercely protective of him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even if she's an Ax-Crazy Dark Action Girl who enjoys slaughtering any foe she comes across, she's still horrified when Merlin activated the explosive implants in her boss's collaborators' heads, killing them all. It's the only time in the movie where she looks outright terrified at what happened.
- Evil Feels Good: Rhetorically asks Valentine "It feels good, right?" after he pulls the trigger on Harry, with her tone making her sound as though she were a teacher demonstrating something to a young kid.
- Evil Wears Black: Gazelle mostly wears dark clothing and she's a Dark Action Girl.
- Feet-First Introduction: Gazelle is first seen when she slices Lancelot in half.
- Gender Lift: Gazelle is a Scary Black Man in the comic.
- Handicapped Badass: Gazelle is missing her legs, which she's replaced with bladed prostheses. She's even more dangerous with this.
- Hero Killer: Her Establishing Character Moment is to bisect Lancelot, himself a badass, in the blink of an eye.
- Honest Advisor: To Valentine, with whom she's very open and honest while still being fiercely loyal to.
- Kick Chick: A variant, since her prosthetic legs function more like swords.
- Lady of War: Gazelle is a graceful, cunning killer who's perfectly capable of clearing out rooms of armed men without breaking a sweat.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The Ax-Crazy Masculine Girl to Valentine's Non-Action Big Bad Feminine Boy.
- Male Gaze: Her rear end gets some love from the camera in a few spots in the film. On the poster, her spread thighs are shown off. Another poster gives a nice shot of her legs and rear as a homage to the poster for For Your Eyes Only.
- Meaningful Name: Gazelles are very fast animals, relying on their speed to escape from predators. She's called Gazelle because she's in total control of her legs. Gazelle relies on her incredible speed to fight and attack her enemies head-on, as opposed to run away.
- Only Known By Her Nickname: It is unsure if Gazelle is her legal name or if it was an affectionate one by Valentine.
- Poisoned Weapons: How she is killed by Eggsy's shoe knife.
- Race Lift: Gazelle was black in the comics.
- Red Right Hand: Her prosthetic legs are a deliberate homage to many of the red right hands in the James Bond franchise. They make her more dangerous.
- Servile Snarker: Not above a minor dig at her boss at times, such as her dry comment that people do tend to die once they're shot in the head.
- Undying Loyalty: She is nothing but loyal to Valentine to the bitter end. To the point that she's the only one working for him who he hasn't given an explosive implant.
- Villainous Friendship: Gazelle genuinely cares about Valentine.
- Villainous Valor: Despite being a rather bloodthirsty character, she also shows remarkable bravery and loyalty to Valentine.
- Villain Respect: She shows a great deal of respect and caution with regards to the Kingsman, having observed both Lancelot and Gallahad in action (even admiring Gallahad's lethality). She's more arrogant when confronting Eggsy, but this could be because she knows he's less experienced than other Kingsmen.
- Wicked Cultured: Seems to be just as respectful of the whiskey as Lancelot is, making sure not to spill a drop after bisecting him.
Lindström
Prime Minister Martin Lindström
Portrayed By: Bjørn Floberg
Dubbed By: Georges Claisse (European French)
Appearances: Kingsman: The Secret Service
The Prime Minister of Sweden, and one of the world leaders who goes along with Valentine's plan. He is one of the only ones who is actually named.
- Affably Evil: He's polite and friendly. He also advocates genocide with a smile.
- Fictional Country: Seemingly played straight at first, as he and Princess Tilde are only mentioned as being "Scandinavian" at first, but then a single clip of news footage identifies him as the Prime Minister of Sweden.
- Hypocrite: Claims that he has no problems with the Princess being kidnapped and held hostage because he's a republican, meaning he advocates for rule by the people rather than the elite. Of course, he's also all in favor of a plan that will result in untold numbers of his own constituents being killed, while his status affords him protection.
- President Evil: Or Prime Minister Evil. He's complicit in attempted genocide.
- Your Head A-Splode: When Merlin activates the remote detonators, his chip explodes along with everyone else's and there's a nice close-up of his head bursting open.
Arnold
Professor James Arnold
Portrayed By: Mark Hamill
Appearances: Kingsman: The Secret Service
A scientist who wrote a book regarding Gaia theory, the idea that the planet is one large organism.
- Adaptational Heroism: Played with. Although he shares his name with the Big Bad of the comic, he is not directly based on the comic version of James Arnold. Instead, he is based on the comic's version of real life actor Mark Hamill - who portrays him in the film - as the character kidnapped by the bad guys and pursued by a heroic agent who botches the rescue, resulting in both of their deaths.
- Casting Gag: He's played by Mark Hamill, his counterpart in the comics.
- Your Head A-Splode: When Harry tries to interrogate him, the chip in his neck remotely detonates and his head explodes.
The Golden Circle
Poppy
Poppy Adams
An eccentric villain.
Portrayed By: Julianne Moore
Appearances: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
- "My name is Poppy Adams, CEO of the Golden Circle. We engage in an aggressive business strategy, invest in the latest technology and take strict, disciplinary action. I'm speaking to you today because our world leaders have let us all down, so we are coming out of the shadows and taking over. And to make sure no one gets in our way... Kingsman is crumpets!"
A notorious criminal mastermind and global entrepreneur who runs the "Golden Circle," a secret drug cartel.
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: In spades. As in, she taints her drugs so she can do a Poison and Cure Gambit and then holds the millions of people who used said drugs as hostages with the full nation-wide legalization of recreational drugs as her main demand.
- All for Nothing: While being publicly concerned and wanting to surrender to her demands, the President was happy to let her victims die so he could win the War on Drugs. Once that happened, not only would she not have gotten the immunity she wanted, but it would be likely that, with the deaths of millions of recreational drug users, her operations would fail. That, and she'd probably be hunted by virtually every government in the world as a war criminal for committing borderline genocide. She doesn't learn about it, though. Even if her plan had gone off without a hitch, it's entirely likely that no user would ever go near a drug again in fear of the same thing happening; when one of Eggsy's friends is cured, he swears to quit the stuff. She would have screwed herself over regardless of if she won.
- Animal Motifs: She has some connections with dogs. Primarily her robot attack dogs and how she expects undying and unquestionable loyalty from her militia, a trait that is strongly associated with dogs. In her base, the movie theatre has the title "Poppy Presents: The Bitch is Back!" It's obviously a reference to the titular Elton John song, but it also applies to the motif, since Bitch is a female dog and Poppy has publicly resurfaced by holding the world hostage after hiding for years in the Cambodian jungle.
- Ax-Crazy: With her taste for Disproportionate Retribution and the horribly sadistic ways by which she punishes her subordinates, she's pretty much one step away from killing someone at all times.
- Bad Boss: Has absolutely no regard for the lives of her goons and will have them killed at the drop of a hat. She even tells a new recruit that she prefers robots because they're more reliable. Said recruit, naturally, ends up being killed by two of the robots.
- Baddie Flattery: She's sweet, even to enemies and the like. For instance, when Eggsy explains his side's method of foiling her plans, she coos:Honey, you're so smart. You should work for me.
- Big Bad Ensemble: One of the main villains of The Golden Circle alongside Whiskey, and the instigator of the worldwide hostage situation.
- Bright Is Not Good: Her clothes are exclusively brightly colored, nobody in her outfit except Charlie at one point wears anything dark, even the Golden Circle's vehicles aren't black, and almost everything cruel/bloody that happens in her scenes happens in bright daylight, but make no mistake: this bitch is batshit crazy.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She has a Faux Affably Evil streak a mile wide who went to the trouble of creating a 50's-nostalgia outdoor mall in the middle of a rainforest and puts her own employees unders standards that run on Insane Troll Logic (like having a handler that failed her shoved into a meat-grinder as an initiation test for a new recruit, who she then proceeds to have the later eat the former as a cheeseburger) and had kidnapped Elton John For the Evulz, but the fact that she possesses a drug empire so expansive that it is able to hold the world hostage speaks volumes.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Poppy and Valentine well and truly embrace villain tropes and come off as diametric opposites.
- Valentine and Poppy really show the difference between Affably Evil and Faux Affably Evil. Valentine's fun-loving nature and aversion to violence provides a jarring contrast to his grisly goals, whilst Poppy's cheeriness and depravity further highlights her as Cute and Psycho. Valentine is genuine in his beliefs and is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, whilst Poppy's motivations are largely recognition and money. Valentine's politeness is real, while Poppy's is a sardonic veneer.
- When they need to test out their evil plans, Valentine targets terrorists and bigots, whereas Poppy demonstrated her plan on her own minions. Valentine referred to his associates as his friends, and while the chips in their heads may kill them if they talked, it's clear that that was a necessity to his plan and he didn't want to off them. Poppy's a Bad Boss whose minions will get executed in often painful ways if they get out of line.
- Their ways of initiating someone into their organizations are similar. The new recruits have to undergo a surgery process, but while Valentine's is as painless as the Swedish Prime Minister described, Poppy's process is rather painful, involving the use of molten gold as a tattoo. Even the purposes of the procedures are opposite. Valentine's is purely functional, protecting the initiates from his Hate Plague signal; the cosmetic scar is merely a coincidental byproduct of the surgery. In contrast, while Poppy's does help Golden Circle members evade detection for their various crimes, the primary purpose is to mark them as her minions.
- Both are self-made multi-billionaires. Whereas Valentine is a renowned businessman and tech genius who manages to keep his villainous intentions under wraps, Poppy is a drug lord (lady?) who is virtually unknown until she reveals her diabolical plot to the world. Their products (Valentine's chips and Poppy's drugs) are the means by which they wish to enact their villainous designs. Poppy, however, doesn't need a mass group of people to die, only the rights to freely deal her product. Valentine, on the other hand, wanted nothing less than the death of major chunks of the population.
- The only real similarity they have is their friendly relationship with their Dragons. Both are amputees who rely on their prosthetics when fighting. Gazelle serves Valentine with complete loyalty and he treats her well, similar to Poppy's apparent fondness of Charlie, whom she gifts with robotic prostheses. With that said, the resemblance ends there. Gazelle is a Servile Snarker who often trades barbs with Valentine, whereas Charlie never stoops to that level of familiarity.
- Valentine is rather Genre Savvy in his operations and has plans for almost every possible contingencies and has many allies supporting him, and even his overall goal in wiping out most of the human race worked for a little while. Poppy, on the other hand, is not quite as resourceful and has to live in hiding with only a handful group of trusted henchmen, and her plan is doomed to failure when she's Out-Gambitted by the US President.
- When it comes to keeping their minions in line, the two couldn't be more different. Valentine has a secret insurance policy built into the implants, but he just uses it as a last resort to keep information from leaking out, and he never enjoys having to use it. In contrast, Poppy prefers to rely on intimidation, deriving great pleasure out of making a gruesome example of those that screw up.
- Even their visuals are diametrically opposed. Valentine is a black man heavily associated with the color purple who dresses like a modern gangster from the hood, while Poppy is a white woman who wears a lot of yellow and adores the fifties housewife aesthetic.
- Their deaths are different. Valentine asks Eggsy if he's going to make an Incredibly Lame Pun. Eggsy doesn't, and Valentine dies happily. There's a Pun during Poppy's death scene, however, and it's from herself. They both die smiling or smirking, however.
- Their motivations are based around politically progressive hot-takes — Valetine an environmentalist who wants to save the Earth from global warming, Poppy wanting to end the War on Drugs and the criminalization of recreational drug-use — and it is their extreme, genocidal methods that puts them on the Kingsmen's hit-list. While Valentine genuinely believes in his cause, Poppy is only doing what she does for attention and to make business easier without law-enforcement getting in the way.
- Cute and Psycho: A sugary-sweet '50s nostalgist with a bright- and warm-colored wardrobe to match her effervescence. She also has a meat grinder reserved for killing enemies and making burgers out of their flesh, among many other villainous things.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Justified in the fact she's already a billionaire who makes 200 billion dollars a year, and being a known criminal would put a bit of a hamper on her ability to sell them, but no mention is made of Poppy ever even considering using her technological innovations for legitimate purposes, which include:
- The fully autonomous robotic beautician in the salon is a marvel of modern engineering — not only can she walk on two legs and operate independently of a power source, she can also perform fine motor skills and operate a large gun with human-like accuracy. Poppy could make a fortune selling these robots to any industry, from automotive manufacturing to mining to healthcare to defense, and she could retire with more money than God.
- Similarly, her Robot Dog enforcers Bennie and Jet are ridiculously advanced compared to modern 4-legged robots like Boston Dynamic's BigDog
. They can run faster than a human, navigate unfamiliar terrain in real time, are equipped with facial recognition technology, can understand verbal commands, and most importantly, they can coordinate as a team for increased efficacy (read: deadliness). Poppy could sell her blueprints to the military of any country in the world and make billions of dollars, but instead she's using it to terrorize her own mooks and decorate her office. - Her entire plot could be applied medically to immunize millions of people against deadly diseases in a safe, inexpensive, and rapid system that requires little infrastructure or training beyond distributing the product.
- The ridiculous amount of computer power required to run algorithms that can coordinate thousands of drones making deliveries in hundreds of cities across the globe, simultaneously, without crashing into each other (or obstacles like buildings, birds, and planes) is something that not even Amazon has figured out yet. Poppy could go into the package delivery business and make her fortune legally, but that doesn't really mesh with her whole "supervillain" vibe.
- Didn't Think This Through: Her plan to ransom the lives of those poisoned by her drugs completely backfires since the President has no problem with letting what he believes are junkies and lowlifes die, not that she gets to learn about it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Anything that arouses her displeasure is likely to evoke such a response from her.
- Dying Smirk: After Eggsy and Harry kill her by drugging her with her own heroin, she smiles maniacally as she falls over and dies, moments after telling them the code to release the antidote. This only serves to highlight her psychotic nature.
- Establishing Character Moment: In her first scene, Poppy rants about how she has so much money but receives no recognition before she forces a recruit to kill a goon (who's also an old friend of his) then go through a painful "makeover" before making him eat a cheeseburger made out of his friend's body, firmly establishing her as a Cute and Psycho Glory Hound.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She's the head of the world's biggest drug cartel, but her employees are prohibited from doing drugs themselves. While it remains unclear whether that's a matter of principle for her or just a case of Pragmatic Villainy, failing to comply results in immediate and permanent contract termination.
- Evil Redhead: She's the villain of The Golden Circle, and is played by one of the more famous redheaded actresses out there, Julianne Moore.
- Faux Affably Evil: In contrast with the "True" Affably Evil Valentine. She has a gentle and soft-spoken demeanor that would not be out of place for a 1950s sitcom, but her Establishing Character Moment is to force a new recruit to stuff a disobeying goon into a meat grinder, make him go through a horrifically excruciating "makeover" without any painkillers, and to top it all off, feed them a burger made out of the executed goon's flesh. Unlike Valentine, she is not a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but a drug lord who is purely motivated by greed and selfish thirst for recognition to the point that she has no qualms about ransoming the lives of millions to legalize drugs. While Valentine's dorky behavior can make him relatable to some extent, Poppy's cutesy act is more likely to disgust and freak out the viewers, since it clashes with her true nature so violently.
- Glory Hound: Her goal is to be a household name rather than a drug lord who lives in the middle of nowhere.
- Graceful Loser: When both Galahads ask for her access code, and it's obvious she's about to die, she could've taken it to the grave, but she willingly tells them the code, albeit at this point her resistance is lowered by the heroin they've just given her.
- Hated by All: Poppy isn't a very well-liked person. Most of her henchmen seem to fear her for her ruthlessness and cruelty towards them, Charlie is most likely working for her to get revenge on Eggsy, the President calls her a dumb bitch behind her back, and Elton John can't stand her at all. Most likely after her Poison and Cure Gambit she is hated by millions, even billions, of people
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Eggsy kills her by giving her an overdose of her own tainted heroin.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: She forces Angel to toss his friend into a meat grinder and eat a burger made from his remains before properly inducting him into the Golden Circle.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: She's fond of these. She even gets a painful one out as she's dying.Poppy: [grinning] Viva... Las... vegan.
Eggsy and Harry: [visibly not amused]
Poppy: Get it? - Informed Attribute: Her being a drug kingpin (queenpin?). Neither Poppy nor any of her subordinates is ever seen growing, producing, consuming note , selling, or even being in the general vicinity of drugs at any point in the movie.
- Lack of Empathy: Invoked by a Fox News pundit as one of the symptoms that mark her out as a perfect CEO and a psychopath.
- Large Ham: Add that Evil Is Hammy to her peppy Perpetual Smiler personality, and it's clear the woman is full of herself. Moore has mentioned that she drew some inspiration from Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor.
- Meaningful Name: A poppy is a type of flower most famously associated with opium.
- Mecha-Mooks: She has a self-admitted fondness for robotic constructs because they're more reliable and loyal than humans. Her two vicious robo-dogs are the most prominent examples. Her makeover android also doubles as an Elite Mook armed with a grenade launcher.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Her plan was to force authorities to legalize drugs and let people use them as much as they want; however, due to the failure of her plan and the world-wide terror she caused by releasing poisoned drugs, it's likely that drug usage is going to go down, or disappear completely.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Even more so than Valentine, given how she doesn't get her hands dirty at any point at all and leaves all the wetwork to her goons. Seems to become a pattern for leading Kingsman villains.
- Nostalgia Filter: Downplayed. She isn't shown hating modern pop culture, but the pop culture she surrounds herself with is all from decades ago, from '50s nostalgia to making Elton John her captive so he can provide constant live entertainment.
- Out-Gambitted: Her entire plan hinged on the President making the deal to legalize all drugs and grant her complete immunity as the queenpin of the drug business. Unfortunately for her, the President was perfectly happy with letting the millions of people she infected die so he can win the War on Drugs. Her plan and her business that she spent so much time and effort trying to build up was doomed from the start. However, she dies before she could be made aware of this.
- Perpetual Smiler: Throughout the movie, she never loses her trademark grin, regardless of what may be happening at the moment.
- Precision F-Strike:
- Psychopathic Womanchild: Her Evil Plan, when you look at it, is just a giant hissy-fit over being a small-time drug lord rather than a businesswoman known by everyone.
- Smug Snake: She ends up being strung along by the President, who simply stalls her with platitudes of pretending to acquiesce to her demands while being fully willing to let people die.
- To Serve Man: First she forces her new henchman Angel to stuff his buddy in a meat grinder, then she sends him away for his induction makeover, and then she makes him eat a burger made from the aforementioned buddy's remains as a test of loyalty and obedience.
- The Sociopath: Sadistic, as her subordinates find out the hard way, incredibly unempathetic as the victims of her faulty drug trade attest to, and extremely manipulative as her plan to become a household name using the plight of her victims shows. Lampshaded by a news pundit who lists all of these traits and outright calls her a psychopath.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: She rarely raises her voice or drops her friendly act, but she's cold as ice.
- Stepford Smiler: Funnily enough, fitting for a person who romanticizes the idea of Housewives from an era as deeply repressed as The '50s. She's a nigh-Perpetual Smiler, but a couple of rants establish that she finds her situation (being a highly prosperous drug-dealer but having to hide in the middle of nowhere and getting no fame or recognition because recreational drugs are illegal) positively maddening. Plus, there's the whole Faux Affably Evil sociopath detail.
- Straight Edge Evil: Notable when compared to every other character even the other villains, Poppy never indulges in any substance. She refuses to let her underlings sample her drugs, she's never seen drinking and she even goes on a rant about how harmful sugar is. It ultimately contributes to her death: the heroin that the Galahads inject her with isn't meant to kill her, just lower her defenses so she will tell them the access code (which it does), but as she has no acquired tolerance to the drug it results in a fatal overdose.
- Terms of Endangerment: Refers to Angel as... well, "angel," and Eggsy as "honey." The former may be a stealth case of Politically Incorrect Villain, given that she's a white woman deliberately mispronouncing a simple "ethnic" name.
- The Unfought: Poppy herself isn't fought directly by Eggsy or Harry; instead, Eggsy fought Charlie whereas Harry individually fought both of her robot dogs. She's instead killed when Eggsy accidentally overdoses her on her own drug in attempt to force her into releasing the cure. The final fight is actually against Agent Whiskey, who wanted the addicts to die for a personal vendetta.
- You Have Failed Me: Do anything, anything at all that displeases her or goes against her rules, and she'll have you murdered in a decidedly gruesome way, possibly by your own buddy.
Charlie
Charles "Charlie" Hesketh
A bionic henchman.
Played By: Edward Holcroft
Appearances: Kingsman: The Secret Service | Kingsman: The Golden Circle
One of the Kingsman candidates for Lancelot, he was recommended by Arthur himself. He is rude and condescending, but competent.
- An Arm and a Leg: He gets one of Valentine's security implants put in his neck after failing out of Kingsman training, but it becomes dislodged in a fight with Eggsy. When Merlin sets it off remotely, it blows off his arm and destroys his vocal cords instead of killing him.
- Artificial Limbs: In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, he wears a prosthetic arm that can operate by remote control if needed. When he loses it in the opening car chase, Poppy gives him an upgraded replacement.
- Ascended Extra: In The Secret Service, he serves as The Rival before unceremoniously leaving the plot and reappearing for one more scene as one of Valentine's chosen elite. In The Golden Circle, he is promoted to a full-blown Dragon in the titular organization.
- Bald of Evil: Has a shaved head in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
- Beard of Evil: Now has Perma-Stubble by the time of The Golden Circle.
- The Bully: Comes across as a fairly standard one towards Eggsy, looking down on Eggsy's lower-class background in comparison to him and his elitist friends.
- Cyborg: By The Golden Circle, he gets his vocal chords and right arm replaced by cybernetic implants.
- Dirty Coward: Fails the Secret Test of Character where he is given the choice between betraying the Kingsmen or dying. He gives the Kingsmen up without a second thought.
- Disability Superpower: He loses his right arm in the first film, but Poppy replaces it with a cybernetic one that enhances his fighting ability. Eggsy hacks its programming when he and Charlie fight, forcing Charlie to remove it, then proves himself to be the better fighter by using only one arm to defeat Charlie.
- The Dragon: To Poppy in The Golden Circle.
- Entitled Bastard: Being from an upper-class family (and chosen by Arthur as a candidate for it), every scene with him in the first film has him constantly putting Eggsy down for his lower-class upbringing. When his neck is put on the line though, he is quick to drop his confidence and sell out the Kingsmen to save himself, later joining with Valentine's and his genocidal agenda in his failure.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. He seemed to genuinely love his girlfriend and told her where to meet him so he could give her the antidote to Poppy's virus, but his attitude changes after he finds out that she cheated on him and he kills her along with the rest of the lab staff.
- Evil Brit: Becomes a follower of Valentine, then The Dragon for Poppy.
- Evil Counterpart: To Eggsy. Besides also being each other's foil, both are highly skilled potential spies who are recruited into the Kingsman training program. Both fail, but while Eggsy remains true and loyal and eventually becomes an agent, Charlie decides to work with the enemy.
- Face–Heel Turn: After being kicked out of the Kingsman training program, he and his family join Valentine's plan, being some of the chosen few who will be spared from the upcoming genocide.
- Foil: To Eggsy. Both of them are Kingsman candidates to become the next Lancelot and neither get in the end, but for different reasons: Charlie because he's a Dirty Coward and Eggsy because he didn't have it in him to shoot his dog due to weakness for animals. Charlie comes from a rich family and is a complete asshole; Eggsy was raised in a poor working-class family and is one of the nicest people in the film.
- Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: In The Golden Circle, he now wears a robotic, prosthetic arm to fight.
- Handicapped Badass: In "The Golden Circle", where he uses his bionic arm which is a prosthetic to pose a major threat to Eggsy. Not a positive example.
- Hero Killer: Uses his cybernetic arm near the beginning of The Golden Circle to hack the Kingsman computer server so Poppy can launch a missile strike against the headquarters and agents' homes. Eggsy and Merlin are the only survivors, Eggsy because he wasn't in his house at the time and Merlin because his home address was on a different system that Charlie didn't know to hack.
- Hate Sink: In The Secret Service, he was an elitist jerk who looked down on Eggsy throughout training, even pranking him while he sleeps. After being thrown out for nearly selling out Kingsman, Charlie joins Valentine and nearly stops Eggsy from preventing Valentine's genocide plan. Downplayed in The Golden Circle when he drops his Dirty Coward trait and becomes a lot stronger. However, he also assists Poppy in killing all of Kingsman (bar Eggsy and Merlin) and kills his girlfriend when he finds out she cheated on him.
- Important Haircut: He had a head full of lush, well-groomed hair before going Bald of Evil in The Golden Circle.
- Irony: Says it's ironic that Eggsy is living comfortably by the events of Golden Circle while Charlie is obviously now struggling. Deconstructed Trope — Eggsy points out in the climax that, despite his background, he's always been more of a gentleman than Charlie will ever be.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: With Eggsy due to their previous rivalry and the fact that he caused the deaths of the rest of Kingsman, one of his friends, and JB.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In case you thought him training to be a Kingsman indicated some inherent need to do good in him, not only does he spill all their secrets to save his skin in a Secret Test of Character, but he also joins Valentine's faction in the end and gives up Eggsy who's managed to infiltrate Valentine's secret base. And then he joins the next Big Bad in the sequel, plays an important role in getting all but two Kingsmen killed, and even kills his own girlfriend when he finds out she cheated on him with Eggsy.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Charlie decimates the Kingsman in The Golden Circle by using his robotic arm to hack Eggsy's console. During their final fight, Eggsy defeats Charlie by hacking his robotic arm and turning it against him.
- Malicious Misnaming: Calls Eggsy "Eggy" on purpose, as opposed to Roxy and Harry, who do so only by accident and quickly correct themselves.
- More Despicable Minion: Compared to Valentine, who is charmingly hilarious, and compared to Gazelle, who is a total handicapped badass; Charlie is a classist twat who fails the Kingsman Secret Test of Character by being a total Dirty Coward, and he joins up with Valentine's plot to cull off most of humanity just because of his failure which was entirely his own fault. Oh, and he doesn't stop being a dick towards Eggsy post-Face–Heel Turn either.
- Neck Snap: Eggsy kills him for good by snapping his neck in The Golden Circle.
- Not Quite Dead: He was presumed dead at the end of The Secret Service, but the taser shock he received disabled his Explosive Leash and allowed him to escape minus his right arm and vocal chords. He's killed for real in the sequel.
- Offended by an Inferior's Success: He hates the fact that Eggsy, a street urchin, was chosen over himself.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Terribly classist in both films he appears in. His snarling remark about "positive discrimination" during the spy screening process (even though Eggsy has very much proven his exceptional skills as a potential Kingsman — he's more skilled than Charlie and his cohorts, who are depicted as themselves skilled) comes off as offensive in multiple ways. He might also be subtly misogynistic, considering how condescending he can be towards Roxy and that his attempt at winning a female target over involves belittling her via Bait-and-Switch Comment (the "negging" technique).
- Red Right Hand: In The Golden Circle, he sports a cybernetic right arm and an artificial voice box after losing both during the events of The Secret Service.
- The Rival: He serves as one to Eggsy during their time training to be the next Lancelot.
- Rival Turned Evil: He is one of Valentine's chosen elite, and he becomes The Dragon to Poppy in The Golden Circle.
- Took a Level in Badass: While he was an admittedly talented agent, he was also a Dirty Coward. Come The Golden Circle, Charlie has lost that trait and is now equipped with a high-tech robotic arm, becoming an enemy who is very difficult to defeat.
- Your Head A-Splode: Subverted. Despite working for Valentine, he isn't killed by Valentine's weapon. It's revealed that Eggsy shocking him shorted out his Explosive Leash, which means he survives but loses his arm and vocal chords.
Angel
Angel
Portrayed By: Tom Benedict Knight
Appearances: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
A new recruit into the Golden Circle organization.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Ripped in half by Poppy's robot dogs after she learns he used her drugs.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Poppy forces him to eat a burger made of one of his oldest friends. Subverted, though, since he's obviously extremely reluctant to go through with it, and probably does it only because said burger is proof positive of what happened to the last guy who displeased Poppy.
- Mook Lieutenant: He's seemingly built up to serve as one, but this is subverted pretty soon when Poppy has him killed in his third scene because he sampled her drugs.
- Mr. Fanservice: An attractive Latino with a chiselled physique. It's probably not a coincidence that one of the movie's Shirtless Scenes is his.
- Sacrificial Lamb: After killing Charles for Poppy and getting processed into the Golden Circle. He is killed when Poppy sets her robot dogs on him for using her products.
- You Have Failed Me: On the receiving end of this for failing to comply with Poppy's company policy, namely the "no drug consumption allowed" clause.
Charles
Charles
Portrayed By: Keith Allen
Appearances: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
A longtime employee of the Golden Circle.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Forced into a meat grinder by Angel.
- The Farmer and the Viper: He tries to help Poppy by contacting Angel and recommending him to her. In return, Poppy forces Angel to kill Charles by feeding him to the meat grinder.
- One-Steve Limit: He's not the only character named Charles, even within the Golden Circle.
- Sacrificial Lamb: He's killed by Angel as a test of loyalty to Poppy.
- You Have Failed Me: Subverted. When abruptly ordering his death, Poppy makes a point of not giving a reason or justification, as a way of showing that she expects her orders to be followed immediately without question.
Clara
Clara Von Gluckfberg
What happens in Italy...
Portrayed By: Poppy Delevingne
Appearances: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Charlie's girlfriend.
- Affably Evil: Among other things, totally willing to be complicit in making millions suffer and genocide, but otherwise seems to be a normal person (even perhaps agreeable at first).
- Dumb Blonde: Not on Kelly Bundy levels, but thinking things through doesn't seem to be her strongest suit. She happily cheats on her violent, vindictive boyfriend (of which she knows that he's up to his neck in illegal activities), doesn't notice Eggsy talking on the phone about why he's about to sleep with her despite only a thin sheet of cloth separating them, does drugs despite explicitly having been told not to, and then even fails to pick up on her vindictive boyfriend's Meaningful Echo, with deadly consequences — see below.
- Europeans Are Kinky: Not wanting to perform his Honey Trap duties without permission from his girlfriend, Eggsy makes the excuse that he has to pee before he and Clara get it on. In response, Clara says he can urinate on her. The
Squicked-out Eggsy, although European himself, clearly draws the line at that. - Fanservice: During the Glastonbury scene with Eggsy.
- Genre Blind: At no point does she seem to suspect that her violent, more than slightly unhinged boyfriend might take her cheating on him with his Arch-Nemesis personal enough to kill her for it.
- Instant Seduction: Seduces Eggsy, which results him in putting a tracker on her vagina.
- Killed Off for Real: Dies in the secret lab explosion caused by Charlie in order to destroy the vials containing the antidote of Poppy's heroin after calling him on the phone.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Clara doesn't come off as a particularly moral individual: She's happy to secretly cheat on her partner; attempt to talk Eggsy down into secretly cheating on his; and be comfortably complicit in effecting torturous deaths across the globe.
- Meaningful Echo: Clara tries to seduce Eggsy by assuring him that "what happens in Glastonbury, stays in Glastonbury". He repeats the sentiment to her when he meets her and her boyfriend Charlie in Poppy's secret lab in Italy. Charlie, understandably, isn't happy and tells her that "what happens in Italy, stays in Italy" just before he blows up the whole lab with her inside from the safety of a helicopter. She obviously doesn't get the hint.
- Ms. Fanservice: She's played by a supermodel and has a very seductive demeanor, not to mention that her entire purpose in this movie is to be seduced by the heroes, for which she gets the mandatory Lingerie Scene.
Bennie and Jet
Bennie and Jet
Appearances: Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Poppy's robot dogs.
- Angry Guard Dog: Their job is to attack whoever Poppy wants. The only exception to this is Elton John before Poppy removed that exception.
- Theme Naming: Their names — "Bennie" and "Jet" — are based on the Elton John song "Bennie and the Jets." Appropriately enough, Elton was the one person they were programmed not to attack, before Poppy removed the exception.
